It was a “one dram below par” moment, a time when the worldview of Dr McClaren seemed apt.

It was Dr McClaren who declared, “It is a well known medical fact that some men are born at least one dram below par,” speaking of the schoolmaster George Campbell in the 1949 comedy film “Whisky Galore!” The schoolmaster is a man who has lived his life in fear of a domineering mother, particularly in fear of her disapproval of intoxicating liquor. In the story, the shipwreck of a freighter carrying 50,000 …

There were two distant points in childhood days, one on the north Devon coast, the other on the southern edge of Dartmoor. Now, they wouldn’t be considered distant at all, no further than one would drive from the Irish Midlands to attend a rugby match in Dublin or Limerick, they would be distances covered in an hour, or a little more. In those younger years, they were journeys to different worlds, places that seemed a far remove from our sleepy village in the heart of the Somerset Levels.

In North …

The receiver was hanging down from the telephone. Stepping aside from the steady moving flow of people, I opened the door of the phonebox and set the receiver back into its cradle; you wouldn’t know who might be trying to call. Unlike telephone boxes in former times, there seemed no-one waiting to make or receive a call, it was odd that the receiver had been hanging.

The Posts and Telegraphs telephone box in Terminal 1 of Dublin Airport stands beside a postbox of a similar vintage, reminders of a world …